Culhane had mentioned that the lady Santa Claus was an unemployed actress. Nick phoned Actors’ Equity and had her address within minutes. Vivian Delmos resided on East Forty-ninth Street. He called her number and got the expected answering machine. Next he phoned Gloria to say that he wouldn’t be home till late.
The address on Forty-ninth was past Third Avenue, in an apartment building across the street from the Turtle Bay block. The Delmos woman must have been successful at some stage of her career to afford the moderately high rents in the neighborhood. There was no answer to Nick’s ring so he took up a position down the block on the other side of the street. Within twenty minutes he saw Vivian Delmos appear, walking briskly and carrying her canvas bag. He crossed the street to intercept her at her door, but she was a bit faster than he’d realized. She was halfway through the door by the time he reached it.
Blocking its closing with his hand, he began, “Miss Delmos—”
She turned, recognized him instantly, and acted without a word, yanking on his wrist and pulling him inside but off balance. He felt himself falling forward as she twisted his arm behind him. Then he was on the floor, his cheek pressed against the hall carpeting, while she pulled painfully on the arm. Her foot was on his neck.
“Mister, you just made your second big mistake. I hope you don’t mind a broken arm.”
“Wait a minute! I just want to talk!”
“How’d you find me? Did you follow me home?”
“Through Equity.”
“Got a job for me?” She gave his arm a painful wrench. “I’m real good in action parts.”
“I don’t doubt it! Please let me up.”
“Nice and slow,” she warned, relaxing the pressure on his arm. “We’re going upstairs while I call the police.”
“All right.”
She led him ahead of her up the stairs, keeping a grip on his arm. They paused outside a door at the top while she put down the canvas bag and got out her key. “Inside!”
The apartment was large but plainly furnished, as if in some sort of limbo while awaiting its permanent decor. “I’m not trying to kill you,” Nick assured her. “When you saw me earlier I was only trying to steal your beard.”
“My what?”
“The beard from your Santa Claus outfit.”
She released his arm and gave him a shove toward the sofa. “What’s your name?”
“Nick Velvet. I steal things.” He decided to stay on the sofa for the moment. Facing her now, he had a chance to confirm his earlier impressions. She was into early middle age but still had a good figure. By the strength she’d shown in overpowering him, he guessed that she worked out regularly. It had been an unlucky day from the start.
“I’m Vivian Delmos, but I guess you know that. You called me by name.” She walked to the phone without taking her eyes off him.
“I was hired to steal your beard.” he told her. “You have nothing to fear from me.”
“The people at Kliman’s weren’t too happy when you set off that smoke bomb.”
“I only did it to escape. If I hadn’t needed it I’d have returned later and removed it.”
“What does all this have to do with the Santa strangler?”
“The killings are part of an extortion plot against the big department stores. My job was to keep you from being the next victim.”
“By stealing my beard?” She gave a snort of disbelief. “Kliman’s wanted to replace me with a cop but I wouldn’t let them. I finally convinced everyone I could take care of myself, but they still made me carry that beeper. And this noon after you tried to attack me—”
“Steal your beard,” Nick corrected.
“—steal my beard, they canceled Santa’s appearances for the rest of the day. I lost a day’s pay because of you!”
“Give me the beard and stay home tomorrow, too. I’ll pay you a thousand dollars for it.”
“Are you whacky or something?”
“Just a good businessman. I’m getting too old to be tossed around by a woman who works out at the gym every day.”
“Three times a week,” she corrected. “I’m an actress and I find it a good way to keep fit.”
Nick worked his shoulder a bit, getting the kinks out. “It sure doesn’t keep me fit. How about it? A thousand dollars?”
“They’ll find another beard for me, or use the cop after all.” She’d moved away from the phone at least, and Nick was thankful for that.
“It’s the easiest money you’ll ever make. Far easier than doing some off-Broadway play eight times a week.”
“How’d you know I was off-Broadway?” she asked, immediately suspicious.
“I guessed. What difference does it make?”
“You didn’t—” she began and then cut herself short. “Look, I’ll agree to your condition if you do one thing for me.”
“What’s that?”
“I want you to go down to the men’s dorm at the Outreach Center and pick up Russell Bajon’s belongings.”
“Bajon? The first victim?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you know him?”
“Slightly. We appeared in a play together.”
Nick shook his head. “I don’t understand any of this. What right do you have to his belongings?”
“As much right as anyone. The paper says he left no family.”
“But why would you want his things?”
“Just to remember him by. He was a nice guy.”
“Why can’t you get them yourself?”
“I don’t want people to see me there.”
It was a weak reason, and her whole story was weak, but Nick was into it now. Unless he wanted to risk seriously injuring her, it seemed the only way to get the beard. “All right. I’ll go down there now and then I’ll be back for the beard.”
Outside it had started to snow a little, but somehow it didn’t seem much like the week before Christmas.
The Outreach Center was a sort of nondenominational mission located on the West Side near the river. Some of their operating expenses came from the city, but much of the money was from private donors. The Center gave homeless people a safe place to sleep if they were afraid of the city shelters, but certain rules applied. Drugs, alcohol, and weapons were forbidden, and guests of the Center were expected to earn their keep. In December that often meant dressing up in a Santa Claus suit and manning one of the Center’s plywood chimneys with a donation bag inside.
The first person Nick saw as he entered the front door of the Outreach Center was a young man in sweater and jeans seated at an unpretentious card table. “I’ve come to pick up Russell Bajon’s belongings,” Nick told him. “The family sent me.”
The young man seemed indifferent to the request. Apparently people who stayed at the men’s dorm weren’t expected to have anything worth stealing. “I’ll get Chris.”
Nick waited in the bare hallway until the young man returned with an older worker with thinning hair, wearing a faded Giants sweatshirt. “I’m Chris Stover. What can I do for you?”
“Russell Bajon’s family sent me for his belongings.”
The man frowned. “Didn’t know he had a family. There sure wasn’t much in the way of belongings. We were going to throw them out.”
“Could I see them?”
Stover hesitated and then led him down the corridor to a storage room. For all its drabness, the dormitory building seemed to be well fitted for its clients, with a metal railing along the wall and smoke alarms in the ceiling. Nick stood by the door as Stover pulled out some boxes from one shelf in the storage room. “If I’d been five minutes earlier, Russ might be alive today,” he said.
“I think I saw your name in the paper—”
“Sure! I placed him there and I was picking him up. When I rounded the corner I saw a crowd of people gathering. He was dead by the time I got to him.”